In fact, the delay was only the latest setback in a development
process where the product was cancelled and revived several
times,
according to the report.

That might be because of how it started. HomePod started as a
side project by Mac audio engineers aiming to build a speaker
that sounds better, and according to Bloomberg, the $349
speaker was organized in Apple's accessories division and based
in a satellite office across the street from Apple's
headquarters.

Lots of competition

Amazon released
new versions of the Echo, its smart speaker, with better
audio quality earlier this year, which will
ameliorate one of Apple's selling points for the HomePod.

Google is also releasing a high-quality connected speaker,
the Google Home Max, which will have audio "beam forming," a
new feature that is at the core of Apple's speaker, and which
promises better sound quality.

Now Apple faces a holiday season where its new audio product is
not on sale, and potential customers will be able to choose from
similar products from its top competitors.

And Apple is treating the HomePod like an accessory or an
extension of the iPhone, as compared to the Echo, which is a
standalone device.

Even when it goes on sale, the HomePod won't be able to match the
features of other smart speakers. Apple is limiting third-party
integration with Siri, the HomePod voice interface, so users
won't
be able to play music from Spotify with their voice or hail an
Uber. And the apps that will work with HomePod and Siri will
be a limited number of tweaked iPhone apps that do processing on
the iPhone, not the speaker.